Splunk, whose name was inspired by the process of exploring caves, or spelunking, helps analysts, operators, programmers, and many others explore many types of data, including raw machine data from their organizations, by collecting, analyzing, and acting on them. This multinational company, cofounded by Michael Baum, Rob Das, and Erik Swan, has a core product called Splunk Enterprise. This product manages searches, inserts, deletes, filters, and analyzes big data that is generated by machines, as well as many other types of data.
Note
Throughout the book, we will be covering the fundamental, barebones concepts of Splunk so you can learn quickly and efficiently. We reserve any deep discussion of concepts to Splunk's online documentation. Where necessary, we provide links to help provide you with the practical skills, and examples, so you can get started quickly. All images and exercise materials used in this book are available at http://github.com/ericksond/splunk-essentials. Instructions for Mac OS X can also be found in the GitHub repository mentioned in the preceding link.
With very little time, you can achieve direct results using Splunk, which you can access through a free enterprise trial license. While this license limits you to 500 MB of data ingested per day, it will allow you to quickly get up to speed with Splunk and learn the essentials of this powerful software.
The exercises in this chapter may look challenging at first, but if you follow what we've written closely, we believe you will quickly learn the fundamentals you need to use Splunk effectively. Together, we will make the most of the Trial License and give you a visible result that you can use to create valuable insights for your company (and, if you like, proudly show to your friends and coworkers).